Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and a driving control method for a printhead.
Description of the Related Art
In some printing apparatuses, a printhead includes two or more nozzle arrays which are used to print dots of the same color and each of which has a plurality of nozzles arranged along a predetermined direction. Print data are distributed to the respective nozzle arrays, and the respective nozzle arrays are simultaneously driven based on the distributed print data. This arrangement is advantageous in improving the print speed since the two or more nozzle arrays are parallelly driven to print dots according to the print data.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-30594 (e.g. FIG. 8C) discloses a technique in which the nozzles of each group of two nozzle arrays are time-divisionally driven, and each nozzle array is time-divisionally driven by shifting the driving timings by a ½ period of time-divisional driving. Similarly, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-30594 (e.g. FIG. 11C) discloses a technique in which the nozzles of each group of four nozzle arrays are time-divisionally driven, and each nozzle array is time-divisionally driven by shifting the driving timings by a ¼ period of time-divisional driving.
In the arrangement described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-30594, however, only one of the plurality of nozzle arrays can execute printing in a region corresponding to the resolution of dot print data. Consequently, one dot is printed in the region corresponding to the resolution of the dot print data, thereby limiting a reproducible gamut.